Chapter 61

_Of a certain Comet that appeared in Germany, and how Dr. Faustus was desired by certain Friends of his to know the meaning thereof._

In Germany, over the town of St. Elzeben, was seen a mighty great comet, whereat the people wondered, but Dr. Faustus being there, was asked of certain of his friends his judgment or opinion in the matter; whereupon he answered: "It falleth out often by the course and change of the sun and moon, that the sun is under the earth, and the moon above; but when the moon draweth near the change, then is the sun so strong that it taketh away the light of the moon in such sort as she is red as blood; and, on the contrary side, after they have been together, she soon taketh her light from him, and so increasing in light to the full, she will be as red as the sun was before, and change herself into divers and sundry colours, of which springeth the prodigal monster, or, as you call it, a comet, which is a figure or token appointed of God as a forewarning of his displeasure: as at one time he sendeth hunger, plague, sword, or such like, being all tokens of his judgments, which comet cometh through the conjunction of the sun and moon, and begetteth a monster, whose father is the sun, and whose mother is the moon: moon and sun."